Chapter 9:
"What the Hell are you doing?" Booth screamed as he stared in horror at Cowl's grey matter running freely over the grass of the field.
Hawk turned to face Booth, his eyes unreadable, but Booth was sure he saw something in them … maybe regret?
"Calm down, Booth." Hawk said softly. "We both know this couldn't have ended any other way."
"I'm sorry," Booth said dryly. "I thought we were here to catch a killer, not kill one. I must have missed that memo."
Hawk shook his head. "Don't be so naïve, Booth. This guy started killing in Canada, then he managed to get a job in the Canadian Diplomatic Corps on it's Security Detail. My government applied to your government for Diplomatic Immunity for him, which your government approved. He came to the U.S. and continued to kill, only this time he couldn't be arrested even if he was caught." Hawk stared at Booth. "Neither of our governments wanted him to be taken alive."
"Are you saying both governments approved of this?" Booth said as he pointed at Cowl's dead body.
"You know full well if they did I wouldn't be allowed to tell you." Hawk said as he nodded.
Booth looked around, feeling the situation quickly falling out of his hands. A position he was in no way used to. He looked up at Hawk suddenly, "I'll have to arrest you." He said quickly, raising his weapon and pointing it at Hawk.
Hawk shook his head. "You can't." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his diplomatic credentials. "You can't detain me, question me or arrest me."
Booth let his weapon fall to his side. "What do we do now?" He asked.
"Cowl was killed while fleeing you and I." Hawk said, turning and walking back into the forest. "He had obtained your weapon and I killed him. It goes better if I fired the shot. Less diplomatic red tape."
Booth followed him into the forest. "I heard you tell him you were with the military and not the RCMP." He smiled at Hawk when Hawk's face went white. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
They walked in silence for a moment. Then Booth asked, "What about Angela?"
Hawk smiled for a moment. "She can't know." He said with a frown. "I know you were in the military, Booth. I need your word as a soldier you won't tell her about this."
"After what you did tonight?" Booth said. "You gunned down an unarmed man!"
"And how may times have you done that, Sniper-Boy?" Hawk spat back. "I did what OUR governments decided to do about a situation. Don't kid yourself and think this is new."
They walked in silence for a while, Booth's mind twisting and turning the situation in his head, trying to make some kind of sense out of a nonsensical situation.
"I won't tell her." Booth said. "But you should."
Brennan finally got the last lock undone, just as she started to hear people crashing in from upstairs. She called out to them and then swung the door open.
What she saw would be burned into her eyes for the rest of her life.
The girl was lying naked on her side, facing Brennan, on a blood, urine and feces stained mattress. She was shackled around her ankles and wrists with large steel bands. Chains led from the shackles to large bolts in the wall. The girl's scalp was partially torn off; the bloody mass of flesh was sitting in the corner of the room. The fingertips of her right hand had been smashed with a hammer, or other heavy instrument. Brennan noticed an anvil to her left with a bloody sledgehammer on it. The girl was beaten so badly Brennan was almost positive she'd loose sight in at least her left eye. Blood and puss oozed from under the swollen eyelid.
Brennan heard the men upstairs and turned towards the stairs. "We need an ambulance down here now!"
The girl shuffled and moved away from the door, whimpering in pain and fear. When she turned her back to Brennan to try to get away, Brennan covered her mouth in shock.
The skin on part of her back had been flayed off.
"And what did he mean when he said that he 'was trained' to do these things that he did to women." Booth asked Hawk as they stepped onto the street where Cowl lived.
Hawk stopped and faced Booth. "Look, my government has made a great many mistakes just like yours." Hawk turned away and started up the street towards the house with the ambulance and police vehicles out front. "Cowl was one of those mistakes."
As the two men walked to the door of the house Booth stopped a Washington PD officer and told him where Cowl's body was. When the officer rushed off Hawk pushed Booth out of the way of the gurney with the girl from the basement on it. Brennan was walking beside it, holding the girl's left hand.
Booth and Hawk both gasped at the sight of the beaten girl and hung their heads.
"Still think it was wrong to kill him?" Hawk asked.
Booth turned and looked directly into Hawk's eyes, anger and contempt in his face. "Who's more at fault, the rabid dog, or the owner that doesn't put him on a leash?" He hissed.
Booth and Hawk were sitting in the hallway of the hospital, waiting for word about the condition of Jane Gloucester, the last victim of the late serial killer Joseph Cowl. Brennan was standing by the wall watching as doctors worked on the girl in the emergency room.
Shortly Brennan turned and walked out of the hospital.
A doctor came out from the room and shook his head at Booth and Hawk.
"It was too much." He said softly. "There was just too much damage."
Booth stood and slammed his fist into the wall.
"Of course I understand, Sweety." Angela said. "I'll see you next time you're down, when will that be?" She twirled her hair around her free finger as she held the phone to her ear. God, Hawk's voice is so sexy, she thought.
"Alright, I'll see you in about a month then. Bye, Sweety." She hung up the phone and smiled. "I wonder if I can get him to wear one of those red RCMP uniforms?" She wondered out loud.
Hawk hung up the phone and wandered back into the boarding line for the plane to Ottawa. He hated doing that to Angela. He realized he could never see her again; his government had already had another mission for him at the embassy when he'd reported in. As he walked past the flight attendant at the plane entrance, he handed her his ticket.
"Hello, Mr. Johnson." She said. "First class is back behind me on the left."
"Merci." He said.
Once he got to his seat, he pulled out his wallet. Opening it he saw the picture of Angela, he'd asked for the night before. He pulled it out and gazed into her dark eyes and mischievous smile. He sighed, and allowed a tear to fall down his cheek, before crumpling the picture in his hand and dropping it in the trash bag beside him.
Booth was sitting at the bar, nursing his third beer and staring at the top of the counter. He noticed the person sliding into the seat beside him and recognized the sound of her voice as she ordered a drink.
"Bones, why can't I ever sulk alone?" Booth said with a sigh.
"I don't think you were sulking I think you were brooding." Brennan replied, taking a sip of her drink.
"I do not brood."
"Yes you do." She responded with a smile. "Children sulk, adults brood."
"At the moment I prefer sulking."
Brennan nodded. There was a moment of silence before Brennan asked. "You going to tell me what really happened?"
Booth looked at her in shock for a moment.
"I saw Cowl's X-rays." Brennan said with a sip of her drink. "They don't match up with Hawk's story."
"Suffice it to say that it's far above either of our pay grades." Booth said, slouching again.
Brennan nodded. "What about Hawk and Angela?"
"She'll be hurt." Booth muttered.
Brennan nodded again. "She'll need some good friends."
Booth nodded. "Yes she will."
Brennan punched Booth playfully in the shoulder. "But right now I think you do."
Booth smiled at her. "You're like the Rocky of Squints aren't you? You just won't give up."
Brennan smiled back at Booth. "Rocky? I don't know what that means."
Booth threw his head back and laughed.